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Whereas #internet has made our lives more comfortable, social media is the biggest mistake ever made: it doesn’t help us in any way. Many people may think social media makes people-to-people contact way easier, bur this surreptitious tool is the only reason why we are stressed all the time. Furthermore, it is the real origin of our anxiety, and it is also why our lives have become nothing but lies.

Stress is what we feel when we’re in danger. Of course we shouldn’t feel like that when using social media; however, we truly do. When we post our real names, real photos, or share too much information about ourselves, we may be victims of identity theft, or ever worse: of kidnapping. There’s nothing we can do against it: by simply using social media, we are in danger and we know it. Therefore, we feel stressed consciously or unconsciously.

Anxiety is commonly confused with stress; however, anxiety is not a fear about what it’s going to happen, but the excitement we feel by thinking about the future. It may seem a nice feeling but, as in everything, there’s a limit, and when we get overexcited thinking about the future, we start feeling bad with what we got right now. Unfortunately, we’re always victims of anxiety when using social media: there are no excuses for not attending birthday parties anymore. With these and all the other meetings we must attend, we are always living in the future.

Due to the extreme care we have to take in order to keep appearances in social media, our lives have become nothing but lies. Some years ago, it was easy to be ourselves on the internet; nevertheless, that’s something we just can’t afford today. When it comes to social media, there’s no way of escaping from people we don’t want to have around us. This does not refer only to stockers and annoying people; we often feel like posting what we did on Friday night, but as soon as we remember our boss and co-workers are in social media too, we may have second thoughts about doing it and end up making a whole story up.

Social media was meant to be a useful tool to make communication easier, but it failed in the attempt. There’s nothing to blame except social media for our false lives, our stress, and our anxiety.﻿

As an athlete I can tell how a pure adrenaline rush gets to you when a race is about to begin; as a spectator, I’ve witnessed all the joy of such an event. In a competition day, the track and field gets bustling and noisy with all the excitement.

After training day in and day out, missing great parties, cancelling interesting dates, and skipping a couple of classes, here the athletes are, stretching to get ready for the competition. The sun shines and burns, and it smells like sunblock and ointment all around. They may be very focused on running as never before so they barely pay attention to all the noise, like the trendy music playing out loud. There are coaches yelling at their athletes, some old people talking about how the Track and Field Team of their university was better some years ago, and one or two haughty guys who are well known for winning every year, talking to each other about the very good marks they currently have. Even if they weren’t using different uniforms, one could tell they’re not from the same city because of their different accents.

One, two, three different uniforms… wait!, there are four counting that guy who came by himself with low to null possibilities of making it to the nationals. Fit people sweating everywhere; one can get easily distracted by the hard bodies, and miss the real sport activity.

A race is about to begin: 400 flat meters competitors receive their third and last call to get into the track. The crowd gets silent quickly. ¡Ready… Set... Go! The crowd starts screaming again, so loud that its cheers are the only thing one can listen for the minute the race lasts. The guy who just won starts dancing both to please his university’s audience, and to make all the other spectators angry…

The excitement in the track and field in a competition day is so much, that it gets bustling, noisy and joyful.﻿

Today, there are a lot of different ways to communicate with people. Since its creation, cell phone became more popular, and we are now unsure about how to tell our friends we are cancelling our wedding, or how to tell our mother we are not coming home before three in the morning. In order to avoid being too pushy, we should always try to start from more informal #communication tools (email, texting), to phone calling.

The most informal way to communicate with people is via email. Even though some people may think it is texting, not everyone have a classy phone with email alerts so an email is more likely to be read some time after sent than a text message is. So whenever it is possible, we may try to communicate with people with an email first. Of course we must not invite our friends to our wedding this way (at least we don’t want them to come), as it is very informal for such a thing, but we could try, however, telling them we are planning on getting married this summer. This way, we are not being pushy, and neither are they going to pay their vacations without asking us more about it.

If an email is not suitable for what we want to say, or it is not read at all, then we can try a text message. It is more likely to be read right away without interrupting whatever the person we’re sending it to is doing. If we want to say something very important as cancelling an appointment for tonight, a phone call is better; however, we can avoid being inopportune with our call if we text first, to ask whether we can call or not.

Then we have the ultimate pushy and annoying tool for communication: the phone call. Always be careful before making a phone call; ask yourself these questions: am I sure the person whom I’ll speak to is not at work right now?, is he or she able to take phone calls at work?, isn’t too late or too early for answering the phone?; then, if it is appropriate, go ahead and make a phone call.

Remember that with today’s technology, we can feel we need to say everything right away, but we must not. Depending on what we want to say, there are some communication tools that are more suitable than others; anyway, we should try to start with the less formal tools like the email. Then, we can move on and text; and finally, we can make a phone call.﻿

Some people consider #Lolita as one of the top one hundred #literature masterpieces of all time. Some others contradict them by saying it is void, as it does not have a point at all. However, it is definitely one of the most beautifully written books ever. The novel tells the story of a nymphet named Dolores Haze and its aggressor Humbert Humbert, a pedophile who marries Lolita’s mother in order to be with the little girl.

The story begins with Humbert Humbert in prison, telling his story to the “members of the jury”; to us. He admits to have killed someone, yet he claims he is innocent. As the story evolves, one may become doubtful about whom he killed. Anyway, he depicts himself as a good person with very high moral standards. Later on, the readers may feel that Humbert is truly in love with Lolita.

Even though he wanted, he is just not capable of killing Lolita’s mother. She dies being hit by a car; only then, Humbert owns Lolita as she doesn’t have anywhere else to go. Humbert prevents Lolita from going to the police, as she would be held and released only after being an adult. Eventually, she escapes from him running away with man named Quilty. He has been following them for a while and Humbert knows that, but doesn’t know who he is. Humbert wants Lolita back and starts following them but, naturally, he loses the track to find her. He really misses Lolita; he even writes her a poem.

Losing his hope, Humbert marries a woman, who dies too. Three years later, Lolita sends a letter to Humbert telling him she needs some money. He goes to her house. She lives now with her new boyfriend: a young guy who is definitely not Quilty. Lolita is seventeen and is pregnant. Humbert asks her to get back with him; she answers no, so Humbert wants to know why. She tells him politely that she’d rather get back with Quilty than with him. Humbert reads in her face how she wanted to say “he broke my heart. You merely broke my life”. Humbert knows who Quilty is, so he goes directly to his house and kills him. He doesn’t even try to run away from the police.

Humbert Humbert is indeed the only person who is guilty of Lolita’s life being so miserable. Upon completing the novel, the reader may feel nothing but deeply sorry for Humbert Humbert. With great remorse, a personal question arises and will always be there: how can I feel sorry for a pedophile?﻿

French is the "language of sophisticated society", and of "romance", but Spanish and Italian are these "strange, vowel exaggerated languages of dirty, poor, uncouth immigrants". That's just the way most Anglo-Americans seem to see things.

It's basically about how #romancelanguages (expect French) are looked down upon by people either from North America or N. Europe.﻿

#Roma or #Romani is the concept with which some communities of Eastern Europe are known. They were known before as #Gypsies ,as they were thought to be from Egypt, but now it has been demonstrated that they came from India and stablished in Eastern Europe in the ninth century. They migrate very often and this became more prevalent with the integration of some Eastern Europe countries to the European Union between 2000 and 2010, so they can travel freely all around the union. Roma people have never integrated into European culture, so they often, if not always, represent a big problem and concern for the communities where they establish. A lot of different methods have been tried to integrate Roma people; however, the only way to do that, is offering scholarships.

Whenever Romani people move to a new country (or city, for that matter), they just can’t be left alone. Due to the fact that they are not well educated, they can’t do useful tasks or jobs; therefore, they steal, trick, and grind for a living.

In the territory of the #czechrepublic and #slovakia ,some hospitals used to practice unsolicited sterilization on Roma women who wanted to abort or give birth. They would take advantage of the fact that they didn’t know the language and hence, what they were signing. Of course it is now considered a violation of human rights, and is not an effective way to prevent Roma people from harming; it actually make things worse, as Roma people would try to avoid integrating to European communities.

Some countries have given Roma people homes, obtaining the same results. As they tend to migrate as much as twice to three times a year, they don’t really need somewhere to live. Every time they got a home by the State, they just took all detachable stuff and leave.

The only way of really integrating Roma people to Europe is by offering scholarships. When Roma do attend school, they tend to be an object of bully as they are infamous all over Europe, but that is another problem that needs to be solved as well. Romani people are very poor and having such an opportunity to receive an income, would be something very attracting to their eyes. Of course this is not an easy trait for government, but it should slowly stop being a concern to become a reality.﻿

Is it really that easy to commit a crime and get away with it? There are some countries in which one can practically do anything as long as nobody else is watching. However, in some countries sting operations are conducted periodically. They are very smoothly planned operations in which undercover police agents play an offender's role in order to get inside the crimes and turn real offenders in. Police are allowed to lie (and even allowed to do drugs if their lives depend on it). Sting ops can be anything from closing bars that allow underage people in, to catching serious felonies’ offenders that may even be punished with death penalty. As long as sting ops are not #entrapment ,they are divided into three main groups: against prostitution, against robbery, and against child abuse.

Sting ops are often confused with entrapment. An entrapment is the enhancement from a police officer to make a person commit a crime. A clear example of this may be an undercover agent who is trying to catch a suspected drug dealer, so he incites him to traffic whether or not this person was going to do it in the first place.

Sting ops against #prostitution are maybe the most famous of all three. Police officers can play the role of a prostitute or a client’s. Thinking that police officers cannot take their clothes off while on duty, kiss, or even touch, is a misconception. Another popular belief that is wrong, is thinking that sting ops can’t take place but at hotels. Some people believe, also, that there isn’t an act of prostitution if money does not exchange hands; of course this is not the case. There are places in which prostitution is only prohibited in public places, but this doesn’t mean that the sexual act is ok if it doesn’t occur in the neighborhood park; it means that the deal must not be made in a public place either, like a bar. This is why a sting op can catch an offender (namely a john or a prostitute) even if there isn’t a single touch involved.

Sting ops against robbery are way less common, but exist. Police may be monitoring cars that are left open in the streets, for example. Even though this is often claimed to be an entrapment, the members of the jury will always have the last word.

Child abuse does not only refer to make underage boys work; it also refers to child sex abuse. A sting operation can occur via internet. Through large international grids of pedophiles, police can get right to the offenders in person, who often happen to be the very same people who actually make child pornography. This is a serious felony in any country and everyone who is involved with it in any way, may pay with federal prison.

Sting operations are deliberately police operations in which the officers are allowed to lie in many ways in order to discover law offenders. There are several types of sting ops, but they all have something in common: they are lures.﻿